Recently, with advances in optical character recognition (OCR) techniques and increases in the number of functions of multi-functional peripheral equipment (MFP), e.g., vectorization of image data, data recorded as images on paper sheets and electronic data have been able to be used seamlessly. Under such a technical background, demands have arisen for a function of automatically picking up only necessary document papers out of an enormous quantity of documents and copying them. In order to meet such a requirement, a technique is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-20027, in which additional information embedded in each document image is read, necessary document pages are selected on the basis of the read additional information, and the selected pages are copied.
The selecting operation disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-20027 is performed with respect to only predetermined specific additional information. However, there has been disclosed no method of performing copy control on the basis of information designated by a user. In other words, it is desired that copying operation be controlled on the basis of information designated by a user to pick up and copy only necessary document paper out of an enormous quantity documents.
Alternatively, when many document pages are copied, it is desired that desired document copies be easily found.